[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/h6KjA4H.png[/img][/center] [hider=September 4th, 2019 - 7:20PM] [center][u][i][Redacted], North Atlantic Ocean.[/i][/u][/center] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWUoQ7T9Dvw]"Go! Just keep running!"[/url] A young man screamed to his friends, lungs burning in his chest even as he ran after them. Perhaps friends was too strong a term for them. Acquaintances. Classmates. Fellow inmates. Fellow survivors. In any case, four youths fled through the trees in the gathering darkness of mid autumn. The blood pounded in the young man's ears even as his breaths came harsh and hot. His fellows were ahead of him, their forms fading into the gathering darkness of the twilight forest. His scream of warning seemed to be swallowed up by the oppressive silence in the trees, the sounds of animals and prey creatures had long since fallen silent on the island. Now the surviving creatures remained silent in fear, and the sound came from the infected. There was a low, quiet laughter that seemed to echo through the trees around the running teen. The chuckle grew in volume and seemed to grow closer and closer to the young man, whose fear prompted him to break into a cold sprint, desperately trying to catch up to his allies. [hr] A young woman crouched behind a tree, clutching a larger teen tightly. The laughter had stopped, as had the screams of her friend. Now the only sound that could be heard was the whisper of the wind in the trees. Leaves rustling as they broke free from their branches and joined the soft bed of decaying plants on the forest floor. Her shoulders shook as stifled sobs wracked her frame and shivers of terror coursed through her spine. "Oh God, it got Craig..." She whispered, eyes streaming even as the older boy held her close. "Shh, it's ok. We're going to be ok. He bought us time to hide." The larger teen whispered in her ear as he looked around at the empty forest around them. The quiet felt like a physical weight on his ears, his own heartbeat thundered and his breathing seemed to be as loud as the screams that their friend had released when the... [i]thing[/i] that had been chasing them had caught up to him. He had to control his breath. He had to be quiet and keep Sandy as still as possible. It could still be out there. "Both of you shut it! What if it hears us?" The third boy hissed at the others, knuckles white around the bent iron rod he was clutching. A poor excuse for a sword clung to like the last piece of driftwood in the grasp of a drowning man. He wiped the sweat from his eyes as he peered around the trees they were taking refuge under, scanning the shadows for movement. His ears strained against the silence, desperately listening for the tell-tale signs of a hunter stalking its prey. His eyes were wide as dinner plates and his vision blurred with each pulse of his racing heart. A quiet chuckle broke the silence. A low staccato of mirth, malevolent and dripping with malice. The trio clustered closer to each other as the young man with the iron rod stepped back towards the tree, eyes darting around the gathering gloom. "I know! Just look what my loud mouth got me!" Came a mocking cry from the shadowed canopy above the terrified survivors. Twin pinpricks of gleaming gold shone out from the darkness like sunlight reflected from polished coins. The trio look up at the sound, and a wet thud drew their attention to the ground again. The severed head of their fallen comrade gazed up at them through unseeing eyes that are still locked in their final moments of terror, while the mouth gaped open leaking blood from its missing tongue. The girl screamed as the loud cackling returns. The pinpricks of light vanished as a rush of displaced air whipped past the vision of the three. A thud and a crunch of fallen leaves are the only sounds before another rush of air and the burly boy is forced to the ground by a shadowed blur with a choked scream that lasts mere instants before interrupted by the awful sound of flesh and sinew tearing. A splatter of meat and blood is cast across the forest floor as a clawed hand tore the youth's throat from his body. The young man with the iron rod releases a cry of fury and terror as he swung his makeshift weapon with the desperate strength of a cornered animal at the hunched figure savaging the young man on the floor. The rod whistled as it parted the air and then abruptly stopped as the clawed hand of the monster caught it mid swing. "Now that wasn't very nice." The creature said quietly, rising to its feet as its latest victim lay gurgling on the forest floor. The boy's chest had been torn open from navel to throat with chunks of gore and torn flesh floating in the gathering pool of blood in his exposed chest cavity. The screaming girl turned and ran from the monster, muscles burning as her breaths came sharp and shallow. The creature's head whipped to the side and watched her go, releasing the rod and wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of it's mouth. "Aww, I just wanted to play a little..." It whined, a predatory grin on its sharp features. Teeth, serrated and pointed like those of a shark, dripped with fresh blood as he watched her go. The boy with the rod seized upon this opportunity and swung the rod again at this murderous creature only for the rod to sail harmlessly through empty air. [hr] The girl was running. She could hear the last survivor screaming something at her. Her heart was in her throat and she could feel cold sweat pouring down her face and chest. Her foot caught an exposed root and with a sickening crack and electric jolt of agony she tumbled to the ground. She curled into a ball, hands clutching her head and desperately trying to blot out the sounds of mad laughter that drew closer and closer to her. The laughter reached her side then darted off into the distance before approaching again. Her eyes were screwed up tight and she abandoned any attempt at quiet as she sobbed. Fear and despair felt like a cold mass of writhing serpents in her stomach, and she retched between ugly cries and desperate moans for help. Her ankle throbbed with pain even as a fresh sensation entered her perception. The feeling of a cold claw tracing a thin, shallow line of angry red along her spine. She could hear her clothing tearing even as the putrid scent of decay and fresh blood filled her nose. "Aww, you're crying..." The creature's voice dripping with contempt joined the sounds of her tears. She could feel his breath on her neck as his claw continued its agonizingly slow journey up her back. She retched again and bile filed her mouth as her empty stomach purged what little remained from her system. The creature made a noise of disgust and she felt the claw in her back pull back as the scent of death retreated a bit. "Oh come on now, really? It's like you [i]want[/i] me to lose my appetite." The creature spoke to her like a frustrated parent of a toddler that had made a mess. She felt the air rush past her, and a strong hand grab her chin and lift her head from the dirt and dead leaves. Sharp claws stabbed into her face as the creature forced her face up towards his, where shining golden eyes with slit pupils met her own green eyes wide with terror. He smiled cheerfully, teeth straight and spotless, before vanishing entirely with a chuckle that faded away into the distance. She felt a blinding pain as the claws tore free from her face followed by the rush of air that lifted the leaves from the ground, rushing back in the direction she had come. She lay there, eyes glassy and skin clammy as shock began to take hold, while her friend screamed with shock that suddenly became a strangled cry before gurgling to a stop. She heard the quiet laughter returning to her side. Slow, deliberate steps that crunched through fallen branches and dry leaves approached her while silent tears leaked from her eyes. She felt the spreading warmth of the blood leaking from the shallow cut on her back spreading out even as the steps stopped just behind her. She lay there, still and quiet and the creature seemed to wait for something. "Get up." It snarled. The sound of bark being torn by claws filled the silence of the dark forest while wood chips fell onto her legs. "I said get up!" It shouted, kicking her in the ribs and flipping her over on her back. Contempt was etched into the furious, bloodstained features of the slender man at her side. His eyes were like a pair of golden fireflies as they bore into her own. He wore dirty and wrinkled pants with a stained white shirt tucked into it under a long dark trench coat and a worn black vest. The brim of his hat cast his sharp, angular features in shadow that accentuated the hard lines of his face. The girl looked up at him and simply wept, the strength to even cry out failing her. "How boring. You could at least scream until the end, like the last one did." He scowled down at her before turning on his heel. "Fine. Be that way. Lie there until something else finds you. See if I care." The creature began a languid walk away from the girl on the ground, hands in his pockets and muttering darkly the whole way. Soon enough he would fade away into the distance, and the battered girl would lie there on the forest until another group of survivors found her. For the briefest instant she felt a twinge of hope as she heard their hushed whispers approaching her clearing. She felt a flutter in her heart when the helped her to her feet and started walking with her deeper into the forest. There was a moment of joy that she had escaped the same grisly fate that had befallen her previous companions by some merciful twist of fate. And then, in the gathering dawn, she heard it again. Laughter in the trees. [/hider]